1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium, and particularly to an ink jet recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A photographic recording medium, particularly, an ink jet recording medium, achieving image quality comparable with that of a silver salt photograph using aqueous dye ink(s) is required to have good properties such as excellent color developability for dyes, high surface glossiness and image formability having high resolution. As a constituent material suitable for use in an ink receiving layer of a recording medium capable of providing image quality having such properties, is mentioned alumina hydrate or alumina, and such a material is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H07-232475.
On the other hand, in addition to the image quality of a recorded image, image fastness properties have come to be required in recent years. It is widely known that an image causes blurring due to diffusion of a dye in an ink receiving layer under a high-humidity environment in particular to greatly deteriorate the image quality. A magenta color tends to strongly show this deterioration phenomenon, and thus this phenomenon has not been permissible in an image forming method of forming a color image using a magenta ink. In order to overcome this phenomenon, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-334742 has proposed causing a cationic polymer or a polyvalent metal salt to be contained in an ink receiving layer for aggregating and fixing a dye within the ink receiving layer.
As a recording medium capable of preventing bronzing under a high-humidity environment and improving image blurring, there is a recording medium described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-153315.